Unfree Minds, Unfree Markets

An interesting set of observations from dL on abortion, intellectual property, public goods, communitarianism, oligarchical collectivism, and the senses in which the u.s. government did or did not create the internet.

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One Response to Unfree Minds, Unfree Markets

  1. JOR June 27, 2012 at 11:28 pm #

    While I’m perfectly happy to grant that libertarian principles (as a given interlocutor defines them) would legitimize infanticide, voluntary slavery, monarchic states, genocide of “savages”, etc. and simply say that on those points I’m not a libertarian or consider libertarianism alone incomplete, consequentialist arguments like these are about as persuasive as scientific arguments for intelligent design. Enforcing any regime has an inherent tendency towards collectivization (not just in the sense that you need some degree of collectivization to protect, say, the property rights of the weak from the aggression of the strong; property rights themselves even in one’s own body are a form of collectivization from a value-free perspective). This is because “total violence” itself – which is inescapable and of which every other possible regime is merely an application – tends towards collectivization. The tendency towards collectivization is inherent in all human interaction.

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